BSES Peruvian Amazon - July 2012
Photos from Aston Nicholls
In summer 2012 I was lucky to be invited along to the Pacaya Samiria reserve in the Peruvian Amazon as a Canoe Leader & Jungle Guide on the British Exploring Society’s expedition.
Sadly my camera broke just before the trip so I’ve only got a couple on file!
I headed out ahead of the main expedition as part of a small advance party. It was our responsibility to get everything set up for the 50 or so young explorers 20 odd leaders that were coming out to the jungle for approximately 5 weeks. This was a very busy period; buying and packing food, testing and fixing equipment, developing jungle and canoe training sessions for the young explorers; recceing the area and running mock rescue and evacuation scenarios.
For the young explorers the expedition was split into 2 phases; a three week adventure phase (with 1 week canoeing, 1 week trekking and 1 week at a science camp) and a community phase. Some of the young explorers and leaders, myself included, were only there for the adventure phase due to other commitments.
Eventually everything was ready and the young explorers and rest of the leaders turned up on a boat to the small village we were staying here. The boat had been delayed slightly and it was dark by the time it arrived; as a (really long!) human chain was formed to pass the considerable amount of equipment from the boat to the village you could see a strange mix of tiredness, excitement and uncertainty on the face of every young explorer there.
The morning quickly came and we split off into our respective groups (or fires as they were called) to start the expedition. Each fire consisted of a couple of leaders and about 8 young explorers. My fire were transported by peki-peki (a small motorised dug-out canoe) to a clearing where we began jungle training and started our expedition. Over the course of the day the young explorers were trained in a wide range of important jungle skills such as using machetes, erecting tarps and hammocks, safe water collection, jungle hazards, comms and camp hygiene. It was an intense day but everyone worked hard knowing that they would need to be using their new knowledge lots in the coming weeks!
The 3 weeks passed quickly for me, canoeing during the day and socialising with the young explorers and other leaders during the afternoon and evening. Each week the young explorers rotated to different leaders (to do a different activity within the adventure phase) so I had the pleasure of meeting and working with a large number of fine young men and women.
Highlights for me had to include:
- Seeing huge numbers of pink river dolphins who would come almost up to the boats
- Going caiman spotting at night in the canoes
- Having jam and bread fresh from the fire for breakfast occasionally
- Seeing one of my fellow leaders perform an amazing dance after being bit by a bullet ant!
The jungle was amazing, vibrant and alive but very dangerous as well. As I headed back to Iquitos for my flight home it was astonishing to see the difference once I left the reserve (on the way in I’d been sleeping so hadn’t realised!). Instead of the bustling, busy, beautiful jungle I was used to there was just miles and miles of deforested waste land. I’m not normally much of an ‘eco-warrior’, I like nature and wild places and I’m personally careful and respectful when in them, but I’ve never been particularly active in trying to protect them. However, seeing this wasteland truly saddened me, it is just another, particularly striking, example of the damage humanity is doing to this world.
I hope to go back to the jungle one day, I would like to explorer more of it and I’m sure there’s lots of remote areas, rivers and caves that haven’t been looked into in detail. It was great to see how the young explorers developed over the course of the expedition, both in terms of their jungle skills and their personal characters. I’d thoroughly recommend the Bristol Exploring Society’s expeditions – it was also a great experience for me, with lots of new experience gained, and I certainly hope to be active with them again in the future.